The source said that the NSA's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the borders of the United States. This particular program does not actually monitor conversations but is used for data mining along with data collected by other secret NSA program such as the warrantless domestic spying program and numerous other sources. Data collected by U.S. companies such as credit history, buying patterns and mailing lists are used along with data collected by the intelligence community. NSA whistleblower Russell Tice has said (60 Minutes video clip here) that there may be many other secret programs which spy on "millions of Americans". The phone call database alone is said to collect information on "tens of millions of Americans." Combining and analyzing all of these sources of data amount to an appalling and possibly illegal invasion into the private lives of Americans.

If you use AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth --- the three largest phone companies --- then your phone calls are being collected by the NSA. These three companies alone provide service to over over 200 million customers. Like the warrantless domestic spying program, the NSA has not obtained warrants or notified the FISA court about collecting phone calls. Qwest was the only phone company that refused to hand over phone call records until the NSA obtained a FISA warrant. (You can thank Qwest right here.) The NSA refused to go the FISA court. But customers with Qwest accounts are not immune to the NSA's violation of privacy. Many customers who have Qwest also use AT&T or Verizon for long distance service. The NSA can also cross-reference other databases to build a nearly complete profile for an individual.

George W. Bush has said that the program is lawful and necessary for fighting terrorism. He also says that the private lives of Americans are not being violated.

In this video clip, NBC's Today Show reports on the NSA's ongoing collection of domestic phone calls.

Everyone should read "Crossing the Rubicon" --- especially the section on the "Promis" software program (over which a growing number of individuals have been mysteriously offed, suicided, disappeared, etc.) Prepare to be creeped out. Taken together with this NSA wiretap & database news it can really start your day.

Maybe the bankruptcy laws pertaining to credit cards AREN'T so bad!!! Less people will have credit cards, so less tracking of buying patterns...and more untraceable CASH purchases! Bet Big Brother didn't think of that, when they railroaded in the new bankruptcy law!!!

I was SHOCKED to find some of this information in MSM this morning. The optimist in me says that's a good sign - maybe someone actually GOT Stephen Colbert's message to the press at the Correspondents' dinner.

Maybe?

Man.

I feel sick to my stomach.

We KNEW what they were doing, so it's no surprise really. But..

On a personal level, this feels like someone broke into my house and rifled through my underwear drawer.

Let's hope this is the final straw that breaks this administration's back - BEFORE clueless George's finger hits the "nookular" button.

"detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law."

What the HELL has happened to my country?????

COMMENT #9 [Permalink]...
The Old Turk
said on 5/11/2006 @ 11:11 am PT...

AT&T,.. Verizon,.. Bell South,.. et al,.. other large telecom concerns,.. have been outsourcing this wiretap,.. logging of in coming out going domestic telephone calls for years. This outsourced wiretap
info has gone primarily to Israeli companies who
pioneered the technology.

The US government realizing how detrimental to
internal intelligence security concerns,.. having or
allowing a foreign company to scrutinize and record telecom info could be,.. started to collect this info through NSA,.. Gen. Hayden spent $2 billion to get this program up and running. Although the Constitution states compiling of this data should not be done,... FISA Law ignored.

Fox news did a detailed expose about the Israel companies who were at the time compiling this telecom data. This Fox News report has now mysteriously disappeared from the web.

So if I follow the logic…gee, we aren't doing anything illegal even though we aren't using the FISA system…and gee, we are talking to "some" members of congress…but they can't tell you anything because the information is limited and totally classified….and gee, we are ok with some investigative oversight…but unfortunately we can't grant security clearance to the investigators.

Gee…it looks to me like we have a dictator in charge. He breaks the rules, he rewrites the rules, he changes the rules, and he answers to no one.

I only hope we can complete the job of exporting our "democracy" to Iraq and the rest of the oppressed world so they can have the same rights that we do.

COMMENT #13 [Permalink]...
The Old Turk
said on 5/11/2006 @ 12:00 pm PT...

Another Israeli company Comverse wiretaps
USA phones,.. this compiling of data was outsourced
by the US Government to private foreign concerns to circumvent USA Laws.
Problem is Mossad (Israeli intelligence) now had info the US Government wanted (enter NSA).

Ok, has anyone here read Kafka's The Tower? I think it's the Tower. Where this hapless guy is trying & trying to get in to speak with some government official? It is URGENT, at least to him, and though he's been told over & over that the official cannot meet with him, it's impossible, etc, he just refuses to give up and he waits & waits & waits in the little waiting room hoping that by some miracle the guy will see him, and he's really, really, really tired, exhausted in fact, but he's made it this far and he's SO close...he still refuses to give up. And he's SO tired he begins to nod off a bit, though he's still determined, but it's just so hard to stay awake...
And finally a man comes in & begins talking to him, telling him again that it's impossible, and he's still so, so tired and the man's voice just makes him more & more sleepy and he talks & talks & talks until finally he says that in certain very rare instances a man MAY be granted a meeting, that in fact HE has been granted a meeting, and the official is in fact ready to see him right now, so if he will just come in...but of course, he doesn't hear this because he's fallen asleep. Didja ever read that?
Because we're that guy.

Security Issue Kills Domestic Spying Probe
The Associated Press

Thursday 11 May 2006

"The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter....
...The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility... [said]... they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program..."

Well, THAT was easy! Thanks, you fellows at the Office of Professional Responsibility!

And here we were worried it would just take ages.
Case closed. Move along. Nothing to see here.

It's little consolation, but even his most corrupt supporters are abandoning Bush. I cherish this quote from an MSNBC article:

"A lot of us have been like Paul Revere and sounding the alarm for three or four years," said Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.). "Conservatives forgave Bush and Congress for our past mistakes because the war on terrorism was so important . . . but now there is a great deal of unhappiness. What you are going to increasingly see is a divided Republican Party."

Did anybody see the "60 Minutes" broadcast in February 2000, when Steve Croft reported that the NSA was monitoring private domestic telephone conversations on a much larger scale throughout the 1990s? All of it was done without a court order during the Clinton administration! Steve Croft reported, "If you made a phone call today, or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called Echelon, and it's run by the National Security Agency."

Echelon expert Mike Frost, who spent 20 years as a spy for the Canadian equivalent of the National Security Agency, told "60 Minutes" that the agency was monitoring "everything from data transfers to cell phones to portable phones to baby monitors to ATMs." Frost detailed activities at one unidentified NSA installation, telling "60 Minutes" that agency operators "can listen in to just about anything".

Echelon computers screen phone calls for key words that might indicate a terrorist threat. Was it ever reported why President Clinton sanctioned eavesdropping on ordinary American citizens? I doubt that seriously. What is your opinion on Echelon?

Echelon records the substince and the content of phone calls. The NSA foreign monitoring of calls records the phone numbers.

The courts have ruled that the information belongs to the phone companies, not the individuals.

President Bush is correct in ordering the monitoring of known terrorists making calls into our country and anyone who is linked to and supports terrorists. It seems that most of you forget that the terrorists will stop at nothing to destroy this country and it's citizens. Does that concern you at all?

COMMENT #24 [Permalink]...
The Old Turk
said on 5/11/2006 @ 3:08 pm PT...

Class action law suit to stop this illegal NSA
wiretap program,..

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T on January 31, 2006, accusing the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive and illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.

When the NSA shit first started breaking a few months ago, I knew there were some obvious inconsistencies in BushCo logic, and they weren't called on it much at the time.

If you will remember, they used 2 simultaneously incompatible arguments: The NSA programs are "targeted" and "limited," etc. On the other hand, they said the paperwork to follow FISA and the Constitution would be burdensome (as if that's an excuse!). How could it be "burdensome" if the program was "limited" ?

One thing is for sure, the phrase "Terrorist Surveilance Program" will be a little bit tougher to say without a red face.

"Prominent right-wing bloggers – including Michelle Malkin, the Corner, Wizbang and Free Republic — are pushing the argument that President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program isn’t news because the Clinton administration did the same thing. .....That’s flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00"

Comment #10: pretty good.
I wish the new head of CIA security would call me up so he can listen in when i say:fUCK YOU you fascist cunt. Step into a boxing ring and i will rip those stars off your shoulder and hit you so hard you will see at least 50 stars u bushit dick licker. You useless piece of shit man with a big gun and a big plan to run the world into total destruction. Creating fear supporting the lying murderers in the white house you call boss. i would fucking destroy you. I am American and you make me sick.

They say it is just a database of phone numbers - connections so to speak. Connections that can be followed up on if suspicions arise. We'll that has always been available. Any police department can get the phone record of a suspect by obtaining a warrant. It happen thousands of time a day.

WHY is the NSA spending billions of dollars to duplicate these records that already exist in every phone companies database.

The answer is they are doing much much more and no one is talking about it - yet!

Mike J.!
Where ya been pal? Still backing the Dick and the Bush? Man, what WILL open your eyes? These guys are destroying America, the country we both love, and you're HELPING him? Why, oh why, can't you see that he and his cronies are FAR more dangerous than any terrorist? You think you'll be safe because you're not doing anything wrong? Because you back him? Did you even read "1984" or (for Joan) Kafka's "The Trial"? You must make an awful lot of money, have no education or just hate 'liberals'. Here on Long Island I've spoken with a number of my customers, most have big bucks, but they can't stand him as much as me. Are we just better informed or can we just see deceit more easily? This guy is a phony from the word go and if you haven't seen it by now, you never will. Maybe you're jst one of those that can';t admit he's wrong. Wake up, PLEASE!

Roger: Every mental ward in America has at least one guy, and they are always male, who will ONLY say things designed to piss off those to whom they are speaking. Mike J. is that guy in our mental ward, and the worse things get, the better for his pathological need to piss off everyone around him. It's a mechanism designed in childhood to get attention. He is convinced it's the only way he'll ever be noticed. He doesn't give a fuck WHAT is going on in the world, or what's right and wrong.

How can we exact some revenge on Bellsouth, AT& T, and Verizon for not caring about American's right to privacy?? Any suggestions? I am thinking about switching long distance service from Bellsouth to Qwest.

Does this mean it would be possible for them to look at every number that a left-wing blog's author has called... convert those numbers to profiles/identities... and bar those people from events like the scripted-town-hall-meetings?

If there were calls made by an anonymous whistleblower to a reporter, could these be easily traced, profiles raised.. and the whistleblower intercepted before they get a chance to go public?

I bet a whole lot of people will switch to Qwest phone service which will lead to loses for AT&T, Verizon, & Bell South.

Did anyone see Andrea Mitchell's report on NBC a few months back. She stated former officials say the NSA can use the Internet to:
Plant viruses on your hard drive
download your laptop contents
bug keyboards to intercept messages BEFORE they're encrypted.
track people's whereabouts through their cell phones
Use satellites in space, great parabolic dishes on the ground & electronic bugs under the sea to spy on every kind of communication all over the world.

John Aravosis is recommending everyone encrypt their E-mail now, but if what Mitchell says is true it won't do any good.

If you think NSA data mining is scary, the new National Real I.D. card will raise the hair on the back of your neck. All information collected via the I.D. card will be kept in a National database to be shared by all Federal and State government agencies.

A National ID card is not about identity. It is about authorization. If this system goes forward as planned you will be required to show your I.D. card on any transaction involving the purchase of tobacco, Rx drugs, firearms, ammunition, knives, fertilizer, flying lessons, alcohol, hotel accommodations, financial services, all transportation including car rentals and any other goods or services the government considers dangerous. When you present your National ID to complete a transaction, you will actually be asking the Federal Government for its permission. All this for law enforcement to track the movement of potential terrorists, who have already shown they are intelligent enough to avoid any form of detection. To think this program will stop them is a laugh.

Setting up the Real I.D. card via state drivers licencing is a clever way of forcing the population into compliance with this program whether you like it or not. Proponents of a National ID Card ( including mainstream media ) have a responsibility to tell us exactly what the system will do to day-to-day life in America. They are unlikely to do so because most thoughtful Americans would be alarmed at the prospect. When your State representive makes a statement that he or she is willing to give up certain rights in favor of this program, it should be considered a critical warning sign and should not go unnoticed. State legislatures could not resist the temptation to leverage the drivers license system to control their populations. Their actions were based on the idea that "driving is a privilege not a right." The future abuse of the National ID Card will be based on the idea that "living is a privilege not a right."

There is a word for this and it's called totalitarian: a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed. To allow this type of government is to allow them to sieze the human soul. So, what purpose will it serve other than creating a big brother atmosphere, a political system that was explicitly rejected by those men who founded this country.

Here in New Hampshire, we have been selected to test drive this outragious program. We had a bill passed by the House of Rep's to squash the I.D. card and they sent it on to the Senate for it's approval. The Senate was on the verge of approving the bill and forwarding it on to the Governor for his signature. But, certain brainwashed members of our Repub controlled Senate decided at the last minute to send it back to committee for futher study. Just a maneuver by the Repub's to place it in the dust bin, hoping nobody would notice. However, we are not giving up the fight. We will continue to aggressively attack those who are in favor of this insidious program. We are determined to show the rest of the country that we are capable of living up to our state motto " Live Free or Die " by rejecting this form of home invasion.

A caller to a radio program said that he used to work for the NSA program when he was in the military. The caller stated that if he had released information from USA person to USA person calls, then he would be immediately arrested.

They go thru frequencies listening for terrorism related activities. The frequencies are close to domestic ones, some sometimes they would hear domestic calls. But if they act on information from domestic calls, it's off to jail.

The caller said that even if he heard two people talking about robbing a bank tomorrow and he told somebody, then he would be arrested quicker than the bank robber would. The minimum sentence would be 15 years at Ft. Levenworth. They have levels of supervisors watching the agents so that no one agent could use the info for wrongdoing.

The caller said that the folks talking about the program are lying in a big way. The fact was that until they had a specific survey of information on a specific number, they were not allowed under law to release the information to a FISA court for a ruling. He said that this has been going on since the 1970's. He said that it's only heard about when the program fails, not when it succeeds. The public can't be told about the successful interseption of terror-related information because that would compromise how they collect the information.

He even said that he might go to jail just for telling his story on the radio.

Now I understand what your first reaction will be. A caller to a radio program can say anything and describe anything. A caller could lie and no one would know the difference. This is true. But how often does that happen? I would think very little of the time.

Your 2nd reaction will be that you don't believe what he said. This is because it does not fit-in with your notions that are already set stone hard in your minds and, as Laura said, will never change. Too bad.

I have changed my opinion about these e-voting system based upon what I have read here and at BlackBoxVoting. So I have come your way on that issue. Can't you come my way on issues relating to protecting our country from terrorists!!!!!

The HEAD of the NSA, who's now up for head of the CIA, didn't know that the words "probable cause" were in the Fourth Amendment. Maybe an employee of the NSA ten years ago would have gone to prison, but now, it's clear, many of them don't have a clue what is against the law. And, their big boss has stated that he will not obey 750 laws. This extends to those who work for him. Try to keep up, Mike J. There were enough laws in place before this administration to catch and prosecute terrorists.... We only needed an administration that would follow them. We didn't get it.

My purpose is not to make you angry.
My purpose is not to simply insult you.
That would be too easy....

My purpose is and alway has been to give you an alternative point of view for you to consider. You can read and decide for yourself if you want to accept or reject what I point out to you.

But please don't simply reject information simply because it comes from me. To do so would prove that you are intolerant of other viewpoints and that perhaps your arguments can't hold up to logic and debate.

Agent99, it would be easy to "piss you off" (as you say). You admitted that this is a mental ward? Wow.

On your #42, you think that the people at the NSA today are not following the law. Well, you are not alone in that as many politicians and some law professors have stated. Yet, other politicians and professors are with this administration.

The fact is that you don't want the BEST methods used to stop terrorism. In that issue, YOU are once again in the minority of public opinion.

What is your opinion on Echelon? You didn't volunteer that, so I ask again.

BlueBear2,
The article on ThinkProgress is quite partisian.

The people profiled as the editors and writers at ThinkProgress all worked for Democrat politicians and causes, even the FAILED campaigns of Howard Dean and re-electing ex-Sen.Tom Daschle (who is also one of their contributors). Yet they say that they are non-partisian? Yeah, right!

Ok, so let's believe ex-CIA head George Tenet but not believe Pres. George Bush. Let's believe George Tenet when he said that the Echelon program is within FISA, but not believe him when he sat next to Colin Powell at the U.N. during their brief before the war about Iraq's WMD program.

Are you going to have it both ways? You do try.

When the President and the NSA head says that the program is legal, you don't believe them. But when the ex-Sec.of State says that she thinks the program is wrong, you believe her.

When the previous President stated in 1998 that Saddam Hussein's WMD program needed to be "seriously diminish[ed]", you probably believed him. But when the current President stated in 2003 that Iraq had WMDs, you didn't believe him.

The real issue is:
Can we protect our country from terrorists?

If another attack happens that information could have helped prevent or reduce it and we don't do everything we can there, then thousands of people will die. The NSA and the CIA have stopped hundreds of possible attacks, according to that caller who said it used to be his military job to work with the NSA.

So go ahead, don't believe those who are trying to secure our defenses against terrorists. Vote them out of office!

MikeJ. We've heard your "point of view" and reject it before you come in here with it, and you know it. This really IS long past partisanship, and well into right and wrong, good and evil. I don't give a rat's ass how popular domestic spying is, and it isn't very popular, IT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL! A crime is still a crime when a bunch of people like the crime. How dare you wave a flag with such un-American attitudes.

I've been arguing with your friends for weeks now. Where have YOU been? I have not seen you post for a while. I did take the past several days off from this place. I can only take the hate for so long before I need a break.

So much for the "class envy" argument. Many of your wealthy customers don't like Pres.Bush as much as you? Well, you are in a solid blue state, after all. Don't they believe in the "tax cuts for rich" mantra sung by your friends in Congress?

I saw a sign last week on a church billboard saying, "Not all educated people are intelligent".

I have quite a bit of education, intelligence, and experience. Why do you ask? Just because I disagree with you then you want to question my education? That's kind of school-age debating, isn't it?

You actually think that Pres.Bush is "FAR more dangerous than any terrorist?"

Wow, that is really strong coming from somebody who used to be in the military. You have seen what it takes to defend America, the country we both love. You know the damage that bombs and missles and warheads can do. Heck, you are right next door to the Ground Zero of 9-11! You saw it happen! Yet you actually think that this President (or any US President) is more dangerous than the terrorists?! The terrorists who killed over 3000 people that day?! That's crazy!

Oh, unless you believe the wacko conspiracy theories that I see here about controlled explosives that brought down the WTC....... I sincerely hope that you don't believe that. Because if you do, then I can't discuss things with believers of that theory on a logical basic. This is because that theory has no logic.

I have not read those books (certainly heard about Orwell's book) and I do not "hate" liberals or anybody for that matter. I certainly dislike liberal philosophy and most liberal causes (not all).

Wake up? Yeah! Wake up to the fact that actions cheerleading for the fight against national security is HELPING the terrorists. Wake up to the fact that parading against monitoring international phone calls into this country are HELPING those in this country who are trying help setup another terrorist attack. They can't be caught unless you have surveillance methods that work in the modern age, not methods from years ago.

Get it, Rodger? Help in the fight against terrorists. Don't just sit and think it will never happen again.

Please.

Hey Agent99,
I just remembered something. You said that enough laws were in place to catch terrorists before this administration? Apparently you didn't have the right people who were willing to enforce those laws. You had people at the CIA who were creating more barricades to enforcing those laws (the Jamie Gorelick wall). You had administration people who were more concerned with defending Pres.Clinton's romps and his lying to federal court than they were concerned with defending our country from terrorists. You had people with security clearance taking classified documents from the National Archives (Sandy Berger). Remember that, ok?

Think with your logic instead of your emotions.

Have a nice day!

COMMENT #46 [Permalink]...
The Old Turk
said on 5/12/2006 @ 3:06 pm PT...

Charlene
Be nice. Mike J. is OK. He's just still a bit confused. He'll put it together eventually. He's got it on the e-vote machines and is concerned about his family. Nothing wrong with that.

Mike
It really comes down to this. Do you trust the people running the government? What I don't understand is why you do. They have given reason upon reason NOT to trust them yet you continue to. Is it because you think that anything written in the negative about them is just 'liberal' bias? Over and over they have shown a clear distain for the rule of law and the concerns of the general public. They put a face on that would suggest things are fine when they aren't. Bush stands there and tells us they're getting warrants for ALL wiretaps and we find out that's not true. They classify everything and many have stated there is no neccesity for half of it. They cut more than half of Congress out of the loop and tell the others they do involve that they can't say anything about it. They collect more and more data on we, the people, and hide everything THEY do! Bush, I've read, has a longer enemies list than the one Nixon kept and anti-war protestors are on it. How do you know that they aren't keeping files on people that could potentially cause problems for THIS administration and plan to use that info against them when the time is right? Answer: you don't. With all the scandals that have come to light, with more to come, how can anyone trust that there aren't people within the intelligence organizations that have access to classified material feeding damaging personal information to Karl Rove as well as movements and phone conversations about planned protests against this government? And this is just one aspect of this whole thing. There are just too many examples of the idea that "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." They have put themselves above the law with no serious restrictions from Congress with this repulican majority and I don't trust these guys to do what's right in the least. I gave him a break after 9/11 as we all did but they haven't lived up to their commitment to the people or their oath of office to defend the Constitution, interpreting it any way they choose to give them the power to do whatever the hell they want. It isn't hatred that you read here, it's outrage at the abuse of this system that has served so well for so long. It's under assault and if they win, we'll all be very sorry.

He's not very good at it--but everybody can't be an ace, somebody has to be mediocre.
I'm sure the troll force is spread pretty thin. They may be scraping the bottom of the barrel using him on Brad. Or maybe they think his dumbass ramblings, including that little naive, irritating, 1950's tone he uses works better than the clever approach on here--Gets the sympathy bloggers.
He may be all they have left to sick on Brad.

I don't know why but, AARRRGGHHH!!!... He
makes me wanna kill...

YOU dink with him then...I can't abide him.
Notice he doesn't answer your long, effort-expending question that might encourage him to think more clearly...
He's like the Forrest Gump of trolls.

Mike J,
Sometimes you sound pretty reasonable.
But here's what I don't get:
If the left is making an argument that is wrong, as you claim, why then does the right, in arguing against it, distort & mis-state the leftist argument?

Example...Re NSA wiretaps
Many on this blog and elsewhere (and actually it's not just leftists who say this at this point, but let that go)
have made these points repeatedly:

A. We are not against fighting terrorism.

B. We are not against wiretaps.

C. We are against WARRANTLESS, ILLEGAL, FISA-IGNORING wiretaps.

Simple as A B C.

The FACT that numerous folks on the right have continually made and continue to make their arguments by distorting these points of view only illustrates the fallaciousness of the right's position.

Oh yeah, and
D. The president is not above the law. You may remember a few people on the right opining this in 1998. It was true then & it's true now.

Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend
Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth, huh
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof

The truth is in the eyes
Cause the eyes don't lie, amen
Remember a smile is just
A frown turned upside down
My friend let me tell you
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth, huh
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
Beware, beware of the handshake
That hides the snake
I'm telling you beware
Beware of the pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Jealousy (Jealousy)
Misery (Misery)
Envy

Listen to me now, beware
Beware of that pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof

Your enemy won't do you no harm
Cause you'll know where he's coming from
Don't let the handshake and the smile fool ya
Take my advice I'm only try' to school ya

Class action suits are an appropriate response to the actions by telephone companies. However there is a far more powerful action that individuals can take. A Company who sells your phone records to the government is guilty of a material breach of contract. I have just notified my service provider, Verizon, that I have cancelled my service, effective immediately. If they ignore my request, I have informed them that the next communication will be with my lawyer.

As consumers we have a right to choose who to purchase products from. Imagine a quick stop at the local KFC. If to complete the purchase you were required to produce your drivers license and have your thumbprint scanned for future government use, would you continue to visit this store? For that matter would you make the purchase? Why then would you purchase phone services?

It will not take too many cancelled subscriptions to help Verizon understand the bottom line impact of this illegal decision

JoJ
I'm very familiar with the song. Another one is "Backstabbers" but I'm sorry. I dont think that's Mike J. There's something in his writing that tells me he isn't a normal troll that's trying to deceive us. He says many things that my brother says because he genuinely WANTS to believe it. They both want to believe in a future for their kids that isn't as bleak as all that so they go along with the idea that Bush and co. are actually doing things that benefit the country. I understand the mentality but I know very well, from more personal experience than I care to admit, that deception and backstabbing is common, it's what politicians, especially THESE politicians, do and they have very little, if any, actual concern for the general populace. Feed us all sorts of slogans and then when they're in power, rape the coffers. It's very sad really and we here are stuck with the inability to live in fantasyland where politicians are honest and George Bush is a hero rather than the criminal he is.

COMMENT #61 [Permalink]...
The Old Turk
said on 5/15/2006 @ 10:26 am PT...

Thanks for the support, I appreciate it. Yes, I'm not like Ricky in my writings. He and I may believe the same things, I don't know. But while he is simply doing one-liners, I am actually posting facts and data and comparisons that I hope will convice some of you of the error of your ways.

I wrote a lot on Monday but my Microsoft Internet Explorer locked up on another window, so then when I killed that window that was not responding, it also killed the one I had here. swell..... I copy/save just before I post, so I lost all that I typed. Then I had to leave for an appt.

Look, Since I have "lurked" around here for a while, I understand what you guys hate about Pres.Bush, however, I don't see what you see.

The ABC Poll said that the majority of people also don't see what you see about the latest NSA program revelation. The USA Today poll is worded quite differently from the ABC Poll, so it's results are therefore different.

I sincerely believe that Pres.Bush and his people are doing whatever they can to protect us from terrorists. It's astonishing to me that you and your friends here can't see that. Can't you give him the benefit of a doubt in the war on terrorism? The standard liberal mantra of "It's all about oil" just doesn't cut it (and has not for a long time). If it was all about oil, then the USA would not have left the region after the first Gulf War 1991 (which I almost was involved in as a Reservist).

Here's one for you to consider:

If you believe that Pres.Bush lied about Iraq having WMD's and since the records states that Pres.Clinton stated that Iraq had WMD's, then who is doing the lying?

If you believe that Pres.Bush was lying about Iraq's WMD's, then you ALSO have to believe that Pres.Clinton and his people were also lying about that too in 1998 (as well as Lewinsky).

You can't logically think Pres.Bush is lying but Pres.Clinton did not lie also.

The only way out for you and your friends is to understand where Presidents get their information from: the CIA. If the CIA was wrong (or outrightly lied), then the information they gave to both Presidents Clinton and Bush was wrong.

So is it Pres.Bush's fault that Pres.Clinton received wrong info from the CIA? Was it Pres.Bush's fault that he received the same briefings after he was sworn in? Was it Pres.Bush's fault that he got the same wrong info from the CIA? NO, NO, and NO!!!